Fauché comme les blés
Meaning: Completely broke.
Language: French
Literally: Mown like the wheat
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Faucher is to cut with a scythe, and a mown field is stripped level with nothing standing. The same verb gives French its slang for stealing, which is not unrelated to how the state is often reached.
More idioms — Daily Life
- S'inscrire en faux — To formally deny something and challenge its truth.
- Cherchez la femme — There is a woman behind this somewhere.
- Jeter l'argent par les fenêtres — To spend recklessly and pointlessly.
- Croire dur comme fer — To believe something with complete and unshakeable conviction.
- Le fer de lance — The leading element of an effort; the part that goes in first.
- Avoir le feu sacré — To be driven by genuine, burning vocation.
More French idioms
- Être tout feu tout flamme — To be full of ardent enthusiasm.
- Faire fi de quelque chose — To scorn something; to dismiss it as beneath notice.
- Des grosses ficelles — Crude, obvious tricks that fool nobody.
- Cousu de fil blanc — So obvious that the deception is plainly visible.
- Mettre le doigt dans l'engrenage — To take a first small step that drags you into something far larger.
- Le dos au feu et le ventre à table — In a state of complete physical contentment.
From our tongue twisters
- Un beau ver vert dans un verre vert verra un ver vert. — Ver (worm), vert (green), and verre (glass) are near-homophones — distinguishing them at…
- Didon dîna, dit-on, du dos d'un dodu dindon dont le dodu dos dodine. — A 'd' / 'din' / 'dod' avalanche that seems designed to jam the tongue in third gear.
- Un chasseur sachant chasser doit savoir chasser sans son chien. — The classic French 'ch' / 's' tangler.
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